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Triple Bottom Line

What is the Triple Bottom Line?

The Triple Bottom Line is an approach that considers economic, social, environmental, and smart growth and mobility implications in the decision-making processes.

The Triple Bottom Line has been adopted by many organizations in both the public and private sector. It is a departure from making decisions based solely on the financial bottom-line. It also reflects a greater awareness of the impacts of our decisions on the environment, society and the external economy - and how those impacts are related.

For more information on the Triple Bottom Line and The City of Calgary, we invite you to view the following pages:

The Triple Bottom ​​​Line policy

The Triple Bottom Line policy​ was adopted by Calgary City Council on September 12, 2005.

This policy provides a clear, Council-approved statement that The City of Calgary is committed to a Triple Bottom Line approach. This means that the City will incorporate sustainable development principles into its decisions and actions.

Triple Bottom Line and The City of Calgary

Triple Bottom Line thinking means that Council and staff will consider and address social, economic, environmental, smart growth and mobility impacts in all City business. This includes City decisions and actions, planning, policies, strategies, services, operations and approvals.

The purpose of the TBL policy is the following:

Vision

To advance Council's vision to create and sustain a vibrant, healthy, safe and caring community by providing clarity on the definition and meaning of Triple Bottom Line.

Action

To embed the Triple Bottom Line into The City's Corporate policies, performance measures, actions and implementation procedures, and enhance The City's decision making.

Community

To place Calgary's efforts in the broader context of efforts of cities around the world to improve their sustainability performance, and make a contribution to global sustainability.

The Triple Bottom Line policy framework is a tool to assist decision makers in identifying and applying relevant policies to a decision, and in identifying the broad-range implications of a proposed decision. View the current Triple Bottom Line policy framework.

Over 300 individual statements were extracted from existing Council approved policies and plans, and summarized into over 20 Triple Bottom Line policy themes.

The framework includes guiding questions that accompany each of the policy theme areas to help decision-makers reflect on the potential implication of a decision. ​

The Triple Bottom Line approach is embedded in The City's Corporate initiatives such as business planning, Integrated Risk Management, Envirosystem, and engage!. Triple Bottom Line is used in all aspects of project planning, policy development and decision-making at The City.